Thunderspire was a bust. Hearing rumors of a lost, tropical continent in the southern seas, Horns of War booked passage on a southbound sailing vessel. After some bribery and subtle coercion we had convinced the captain that an exploratory voyage to this mysterious jungle land would be an excellent idea. Pack your bags gentle readers we are going on a cruise. Drinks with little umbrellas in them, half naked island folk, coconut bikini tops, this would be the best trip ever.

Sadly, adventurers cannot ride on boats without something awful happening to them and this trip would be no different. As an aside, why on earth would any non-suicidal captain even allow adventurers aboard any ship, ever?

Regardless, several weeks, yes, weeks… it takes forever to get anywhere with a stupid boat, teleportation WHERE ART THOU!?!?! Where was I? Yes, several weeks into the journey, the occasional storm, and a dragon turtle sighting later we hit an aqua speed bump. Another ship came into view, under a veil of ocean mist, under the flag of piracy! Aboard this rival vessel was a crew of ninja pirates. (I am not making this up, though they could have been pirate ninjas for all I know). They began a siege against our small, but sturdy ship; ninjas flying through the air, fire, death, bedlam. Just for flavor, a storm rolled in, lightening splitting the sky, illuminating the epic sea battle. Thunder began rolling across waves to shake the burning timbers of the ships. But wait, it gets even better.

A whirlpool began to form at least a dozen ships wide, funneling down, down, down into the inky darkness of the endless sea bottom. Both vessels, heroic and ninja, were now caught in this behemoth spiral! You might want to sit down, because there is more. One after another pillars of sinuous pink flesh each four times as thick as the main mast burst forth from the water surrounding the two ships. Someone yelled (probably Captain Obvious himself), “KRACKEN!” The kracken began savaging the ships, and at that the fight between ninja pirates and Horns of War was a moot point. I found the most authorative looking ninja and told him, “Look, Yoshi Blackbeard, or whatever your name happens to be, we have to work together or we are all squid snacks.”

Nodding his accent we lashed our two ships together, combined sails and skill, dropped all available cargo, including the gun powder barrels (which we blew up in the kracken’s face), and crested the edge of the whirlpool. Daring escape? You know it. But now the chase was on, a chase we were sure to lose, with the kracken jetting after us, there was little hope for our survival. Or was there?

It turned out the ninja pirates lived on a floating island, probably a turtle, I never confirmed this, but on this island was a powerful sea dragon. Well, he was a territorial fellow apparently, because as soon as the Kracken jetted too close the fight was on. Popcorn, peanuts, it was a Godzilla-esque super battle like I had never seen, in fact the two titans fought for HOURS, 7 to be precise, and again I swear to you I am not making this up.

Eventually our deadly towering monster of death was the victor, tired from the battle and its wounds it returned to its lair to rest. Horns of War then paid tribute the beast by donating all their available coinage and gems… and residium… *sigh* Look, it was that or be fed to the dragon. So we celebrated, huge party, 7 days long. Restocked our supplies (hey look at that we are totally broke) checked our heading, mapped the charts, scurvied the dog, shivered a timber, insert more nautical terms here, and two weeks later made landfall on the beaches of the southern continent, who as it turns out was having some trouble with snakes…